An Author Interview with Lillian Keith, Author of ‘The Apprentice Escapes’

Hello, all! ^^ How have you all been doing? I am super excited to be doing today’s post, because today, I’m interviewing a fellow middle-grade author (and indie author!) Lillian Keith, author of The Apprentice Escapes, and a ton more fantastic books for kids!

I actually came across Lillian’s books when I found her blog (which is so cute and you can check it out at lilliankeithauthor.wordpress.com), and I was super excited to find a fellow middle-grade author!! So I headed to Amazon, got two of her books, and read them and loved them!!! They are fantastic, short reads for kids, and I’m really excited to interview her!

Without further ado, let us get on into the interview, shall we?

Hello, Lillian! Thank you so much for joining me for this interview! To start us off, can you tell us a bit about The Apprentice Escapes? How did you get the idea for this book and were there any specific things that inspired you as you wrote this book?

Hi Isabelle, thank you so much for having me. And absolutely! An Apprentice Escapes is my debut MG dystopian novella (with a Victorian Era twist to it.) The story came from a few different ideas I had while I was taking a writing class, but here’s the main thing that inspired it. During the lesson, I was practising a technique called ‘clustering’. It’s where you write a word in the middle of your paper. Then you just start writing more words around it that come to mind. You can connect them with arrows or lines or whatever you prefer to draw. It’s a fun way to try to brainstorm an idea. When I did it, I came up with the idea of a young girl all alone (alas, I misplaced my original paper that I wrote my notes on *sobs*). Anyway, since my family often uses herbal remedies, I added the apothecary element to the idea, along with the thought of ‘what if a child had to be taken from her home, and why?’. Oh, and I thought the setting for Jennifer Nielsen’s The Scourge was really cool, so I decided to deviate from the typical medieval fantasy setting, and instead went for a more Victorian Era feel.

Oh no! Sorry to hear you lost the original paper you wrote your notes on — I hate when that happens! But I really loved the theme of this book of reaping what you sow and sowing only the worthy seeds. Could you tell us a bit about the theme and what inspired this theme?

Actually, my mom was the one who suggested it. She thought that the story could be strengthened if the MC (Lyla) had a special saying her mother taught her. After some thought, we decided to go with ‘sowing worthy seeds’, since they were apothecaries and grew their own herbs. Plus Lyla learned that her actions do have consequences, both good and bad, and she had to decide if doing what was right was worth it (even if it was hard and painful).

Who’s your favorite character in this book? Why would you pick them to be your favorite character?

*whispers* While I love them all (I really connected with Lyla while writing her story), I think I’ll always have a soft spot for her friend, Finn. He’s one of those characters that I hadn’t planned on having in the story, until he showed up at my door saying he belonged there lol. He’s very friendly and out-going, so I’d think it’d be fun to meet him in real life.

I have had characters like that as well. What was the hardest part of writing this book? Why? What do you think was the best part?

Oof! Maybe the editing? I just remember that at one point I was in tears while trying to get the finished story published. It was my very first time indie-publishing, and there were unexpected delays as I tried to figure it all out. As for the best part, I think it was expanding the story and adding Finn and Lyla’s friendship to the plotline.

What is your writing process like, and what did the first draft of the book look like? Did the final draft turn out differently than what you’d imagined?

Usually, I like to brainstorm an idea and then write up a three part outline (for longer stories, I expand the outline, though I don’t go into great detail. I keep some things open/vague in case I need to change something plot-wise). And actually, An Apprentice Escapes was supposed to be a short story for my writing class. My teacher said it was good, but the ending was too short; it needed to be fixed. I set the story aside, and when my sister and I started up a blog (now out of commission), I was going to expand and turn it into a serial story. Except my mom said the premise was really good; I should expand the ending and publish it instead. So, I did, and it became my debut published story.

What was it that made you want to write middle-grade/books for kids?

I’m not sure it was one major thing. For one, I’ve always kept a love for MG books (good YA books were hard for me to find as a teen. If anyone has recs, please let me know! I’ve started a YA tbr list, so I’d love to add more suggestions). Anyway, MG was the genre that I really related to the most, growing up. So after looking into the difference between MG and YA stories, I realized my style and passion fit the best with a kid audience. Maybe someday I’ll try YA, but for now, I feel like I’m called to write for kids.

Did you always want to be a writer when you were younger? What inspired you to become a writer?

I actually thought I’d end up working at Hobby Lobby (a Christian-based craft store). I mean, growing up, I thought it’d be cool to write a book and have it published (hit the bestseller list, get a movie adaptation, etc lol.) And I’ve always told stories for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until the end of highschool that I talked with my mom and realized that being a full-time writer was actually an option.

Do you have a secret pen name that no one knows anything about?

Lillian Keith is actually my pen name lol (though, my real name is Lily. I thought, to make things simpler, I’d use a variation of my name for writing.) Fun fact: I was actually thinking of writing for a YA audience under the name of Julia Hope, in addition to writing for kids. I even set up a Goodreads account and such under that name. However, I ended up deciding that since I wanted to mainly write for kids, I’d stick with just one pen name.

And finally, what’s your advice for young writers who want to start writing and get their books out there into the world?

I’d say keep learning and growing. Find good writing classes that will give you a foundation of solid writing advice to practice with (then you can start thinking outside the box once you’ve mastered the basics!) I’d also encourage you to find honest, encouraging feedback on your work so you can improve. Most importantly, keep persevering! Being able to hold your finished story is worth it. 🙂

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A huge thank you to Lillian Keith for joining me today with this interview! I had a wonderful time hearing her thoughts, especially about editing. As a fellow indie author, for whom editing feels like untangling a knotted ball of yarn, I related to that so much.

And thank you so much for coming to read this interview! I hope you enjoyed hearing Lillian’s answers to all these questions, and if you’d like to learn more about her and her books, then do check out her wonderful books and her wonderful blog!!! ^^ And if you’d like to see more MG book reviews, author interviews, etc, then do check out Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, which has all of those!

About the Author:

Becoming a writer was inevitable for Lily (as she prefers to be called). Ever since she learned to talk, she would rattle off stories to her dolls or baby sister. By the time she was around six or seven, she was hand-making “books” out of paper and illustrating them with colored pencils and rubber stamps. It would take awhile, but eventually, she would be setting her own officially published books on the shelves next to her favorite authors.

Children’s and Middle Grade books are Lily’s passion. She grew up in a homeschooling family that valued well-written and meaningful stories. Some of her most favorite books are the Newberry Award winners such as When You Reach Me, Walk Two Moons, and more. She’s super excited to share her stories with kids. Her hope is to inspire them and get them to see their world from a new perspective.

When she’s not writing, she’s often doing crafts or blogging about writing on her author site: https://lilliankeithauthor.wordpress.com

She loves hearing from her readers, so feel free to send a message and say ‘hey’.